The resources and computation tasks in a computing system are frequently spread among a plurality of network nodes to form a distributed computing system with a centralized network management system to manage shared resources. While the centralization of shared resources potentially makes the administration and maintenance of network elements more efficient and reliable, the increasing diversity of network elements in distributed computing systems provides additional challenges for network management systems that attempt to manage network resources in a uniform manner. In a large network environment, for example, the task of maintaining an inventory of the connected personal computers and workstations, as well as the software installed on each machine, can be overwhelming. In addition, the inventory is typically not static as new machines and software are incorporated and existing software products and machines are retired from use on an ongoing basis.
One of the issues of a dynamic nature concerns how new machines are introduced into the inventoried system and how existing machines, due to some type of failure or virus infection, may be reinstalled in their original state. Many times, a number of new machines are prepared for system installation by taking a snapshot image of a machine with a prespecified software configuration and then duplicating this software configuration image on multiple machines prior to installation or delivery. The snapshot image may contain a machine unique identifier that is also duplicated in the process. This duplication of the unique identifier causes problems. A similar situation exists with machines already in use, if for some reason, the operating software configuration becomes corrupted and the machine is reinitialized to its original configuration. This reinitialization may also cause a unique identifier to be duplicated.
Thus, there exists a need for a dynamic and accurate inventory management system and method that takes into account the methods of preparing machines for system installation and for introducing existing machines that have been reinitialized to an original machine configuration.